Talk about Benjamin Rosenbaum here, if you like. Or check out his web site. Or email him. Or join his writing announcements list. Or not.
Here is the exploded Rumor Mill.
.
| I'm actually a great-grandfather, Lori, if you count the Little Giraffe, who is Andrew's child.
Originally Aviva maintained that the Giraffe was Andrew's child by parthenogenesis, and that Andrew was the "daddymommy". Tonight, however, she explained to us and our dinner guests that Andrew is the daddy and Annabelle, Andrew's sister, is the mommy. "Honey," I said, "You can't do that -- I mean, you can't have a Daddy and Mommy who are brother and sister -- it's not allowed. I mean," I equivocated in the face of Aviva's cool regard, "maybe in Oberwil, but..." Aviva said knowingly, "Daddy, in Oberwil..." -- she shrugged -- " ...it happens." Which cracked the dinner table up. Jed, I'd have to write a zeppelin story first... |
| I'll be at WisCon.
Maybe there should be a Zeppelin-stories group reading? :) |
| Ben! You're a grandfather! Lori |
| Good assumption. :^D |
| I shall crosspost this at Meet Me At The Con, I suppose, but...
It's a long time from now, but I'm looking forward to it, so --who's going to WisCon? Who wants to share a room? Who wants to create a group reading, as suggested by the WisCon website? |
| Thank you!
Though I'm not sure if you're referring to Aviva being named Aviva Rahel Rosenbaum again, or "The Valley of the Giants" being picked for YBF&H;, or for selling "Start the Clock" to F&SF; as reported in Good News For the Ego Shelf. I shall assume all of the above. :-) |
| Congratulations, Benjamin! |
| I'm pleased to report that my daughter is once again named Aviva Rahel Rosenbaum.
She changed her name, about a month or two ago, to Aviva Dünns Zelt. Her children-dolls were also named Dünns Zelt (Annabelle Dünns Zelt, Andrew Dünns Zelt, Gäella Dünns Zelt, Cereina Dünns Zelt, Jeanne Dünns Zelt, and Bim Dünns Zelt), as was their father (Happy Boy Dünns Zelt). (Esther, Noah, and I, however, retained our respective last names). I was surprised at how melancholy this made me: I wasn't expecting her to stop being a Rosenbaum for a few more years, at least. She reassured me that she would be a Rosenbaum again later. Now, not only has she reverted to being Aviva Rahel Rosenbaum, but so have the rest of them -- Annabelle Rahel Rosenbaum, Andrew Rahel Rosenbaum, Gäella Rahel Rosenbaum, Cereina Rahel Rosenbaum, Jeanne Rahel Rosenbaum, Bim Rahel Rosenbaum, and Happy Boy Rahel Rosenbaum. It occurs to me that this is further evidence of just how much farhter ahead of the curve Aviva is than I at solving all sorts of problems of feminism... |
| Excellent.
That's reminiscent of an old Italian observation that if 10,000 feminst radicals march in the streets of Rome, you write "le militante femminste marciavano..." But if a ten-year-old boy joins them you write "i militanti femminsti marciavano..." And that just don't seem right. Actually you could have consoled the professor by telling them that what you wanted to be called would be written "StudentInnen"... |
| I took a summer course in German two years ago, and we had a bit of a student uprising over the gendered nouns. We had about thirty students in the class, and all but two were women, and we insisted on being called die Studentinnen rather than die Studenten. Susan |
| Yes, Ben, the need to always specify the biological sex in the words for professions has always bothered me in German. "The professor" leaves room for surprises, "die Professorin" does not.
Surprises can be a very educational thing sometimes. And, yes, I agree with you that to a certain extent being protected from bigotry in my youth was a good thing, but it also meant that when I came smack dab up against it in personal and professional life, I was totally unprepared. :-/ |
| > about making sure to use the female form of every profession
I mean, when talking about a specific person. Which (and this is always my argument) leaves you no good option for concisely expressing the abstract form of the profession -- at least when speaking. When writing you can sometimes get away with "der/die PraesidentIn", with the captial "I" signaling bigenderality. Sometimes I try to approximate the capital "I" in speech with a glottal stop, but I think everyone just thinks I have the hiccups. |
| I had some of the same sense that the battles had already been won, and I'm glad I did. There's no better initial emotional response to oppression than being flabbergasted at how dumb-ass it is. Yay liberated enclaves. Indeed -- as must be evident from my initial remarks in this thread -- I'm actively trying to shelter Aviva from the world's evil and wrongheadedness as long as I can. It won't be very long, ultimately. But there's something to be said for being grounded, initially, in a particular set of values. (Though as Samuel Delany discusses very eloquently in the interview with him in the first ish of Argosy, everyone has values -- indeed, that's the problem).
What's interesting in German, Ruth, is that feminists are so invested in gendering the language. While English-language feminists are more likely to want the language to be neutral, expunging "actress" and "stewardess", German-speaking feminists like my wife Esther are zealous about making sure to use the female form of every profession -- always Aerztin, never (Frau) Doktor. I think ISNA is very sensible in arguing that there is no way we are going to get beyond the categories male/female in the forseeable future, and that the thing to do is make them categories of choice rather than claiming that they are categories of nature. It is intolerably cruel, they argue and I would agree, NOT to assign a gender to a child. But if we realize our assignment of gender is provisional and on some level arbitrary, then we can reconsider the temptation to, say, operate too hastily and invasively on intersex children, possibly doing damage to anatomical function and sensation in the quest to make them "normal". Although I must say (having just gone through a long and difficult process of wrestling with the issue of circumcising Noah and, in the end, having done so), that I have a lot of sympathy with parents forced to make the decision about surgical reassigment of intersex babies, whichever way they decide. The world can be very cruel to the abnormal, and it is natural to want to protect your children from that. |
| Interesting discussion.
I did a lot of research on TGTS for a story I wrote a couple years back. I can't help wondering if there would be fewer folks in need of surgery to make the physical body match the mental gender identity if our culture weren't so very gendered. It forces people to choose rather than recognizing anything in-between. Even if you consider yourself fairly emancipated, it's hard to get out of the box -- one of the first distinctions we make when we meet someone is whether that person is male or female. And in English at least, we need to know so we can use the right pronoun. (In German we can just get away with "die Person" -- make all strangers gramatically female, basta. ) As to the bathrooms: we had coed bathrooms in my coop in Eugene and coed bathrooms in the student housing here in Germany as well. And lots of affairs in both. :-) I'm with you, Jed -- I often feel like I grew up with a skewed world view somehow, thinking the battles had already been won, even though my mother was a housewife. But it was the seventies, in Eugene, and it seemed like the whole world was liberated. |
| We had coed bathrooms with private stalls in our dormitories too... (Of course, I went to school at Oberlin, so that wasn't too much of a surprise.) Every new student felt really awkward for about a week, I think, and then we all settled in happily. The funniest thing was the attitude shift among the male students in our dorm--the first night they walked in with toothbrush and towel to face a huge group of gossipping women, they all looked horrified. By the end of the first semester, they'd all adjusted, and happily settled into half-hour-long conversations by the sinks. I think it bothered some people's parents, but I never heard any of the students complain. Steph Burgis |
| One of the things I liked about the new Battlestar Galactica (at least, I think it was there) was the casualness of the coed bathrooms.
Re Klinefelter: I had a friend who I think had Kallmann Syndrome; not quite the same as Klinefelter, but I gather they're similar in some ways. |
| We had coed bathrooms with private stalls in my dormitory in college, freshman year. Each unit got to vote on whether to have separate-sex or coed bathrooms, but if you had separate sex bathrooms one sex would have to go to another floor to pee (the building was not designed to be coed).
Oddly, you would think this might lead to an embarassing or randy atmosphere among a group of 18 year olds, but the effect was the opposite: it made us all family. Intraunit dating was extremely rare -- you just didn't want to hook up with people who saw you brushing your teeth each morning. Since the lounge was tucked at the end of the hallway and little used except for formal meetings and such, the bathroom was kind of a natural meeting and saying-hello place for everyone. There was also the same phenomenon I've seen in everyone's-naked California hot tubs -- the fact that there was the *possiblity* of inappropriateness, yet it did not occur, allowed everyone to demonstrate restraint and generated a surprising amount of unspoken mutual goodwill, respect, and solidarity. Although I don't know if this was everyone's experience; in retrospect, I would now worry about someone who was in the minority in feeling uncomfortable with the situation, who got outvoted or felt under pressure to be cool and not speak up. I think even in most such cases it probably worked out -- but maybe some people remained uncomfortable... |
| Re: 717
As they say in the Supreme Court, that issue is not yet ripe. I wonder if at any time in our lifetimes we will ever got to co-ed bathrooms with private stalls. Private homes have co-ed bathrooms. Europeans have co-ed bathrooms. Portable bathrooms (like at fairs and other events) are mostly co-ed. Why not for general use? Separate restrooms seems to be a vestige of America's puritanical roots or a remnant of Victorian thinking. Perhaps it's time to abandon it all. Sean K |
| Also XYY, about which there is much debate:
http://www.nuffieldbioethics.org/publications/geneticsandhb/rep0000001077.asp http://www.gender.org.uk/chstnuts/xyy.htm |
| I was kind of refering to the stuff on www.isna.org, i.e., the idea that you can have XX or XY but have genitalia that physically resemble the opposite "sex". There is also the case of people born with an additional chromosome who have XXY (Klinefelter's syndrome). I believe they are classified as male by doctors. I'm not sure whether it is possible to have XXX. Patrick Samphire |
| > Of course, this was all a lot easier when all believed the whole XX and XY chromosome distinction. Now, this distinction appears to to be less clear and not as straightforward as some believed.
Patrick, do you have any references on that? I'd be very interested... |
| Swiss-German, Amy. Basel dialect.
Yes, Jed, she sure is! |
| Re #715: Yay, Aviva!
Judging by that and #710, that's one charming kid you got there. |
| Benjamin, just curious -- in the original -- is that German? It looks 99% German to me but not quite.... (please excuse my ignorance) Amy Sisson |
| (If people start leaving intersex babies alone as ISNA wants them to, instead of "fixing" them surgically, your judge is going to have to make a rule involving the lengths and shapes and configurations of primary sexual characteristics, that your publican can verify -- say with a ruler, protractor, and compass -- before he throws anyone out of his pub). |
| > although there is a substantial weight of feeling
> that you are what you're born as, physically. Although that's not very clear either: www.isna.org I think what you really mean is "what the doctors and your parents decided you were/would be, at birth or sometime thereafter". |
| I was curious, so I asked Aviva yesterday: "What's the difference between boys and girls?"
She said (I kid you not): "I don't know. No one knows." [in the original -- "Was isch dUnterscheid zwuesche Buebe und Meitli?" "ich weiss nid -- niemer weisst es"] |
| It looks to me like the judge went with a simple, common-sense solution: the proper bathroom is determined by the plumbing. Sean K |
| Well, even though Aviva is undoubtably precocious, I think you're right that the discussion of "what is gender?" might be a few years beyond her still. It's probably a few years beyond me too. Pretty much any answer is unsatisfactory. It's something, though, that has to dealt with. A recent case of interest: a group of four transexuals, three pre-operative, one post-operative were thrown out of a pub for going into women's bathroom. They took the publican to court. After much confusion, the court decided it was okay to throw out the pre-operative transexuals, but not the post-operative. Therefore, in the eyes of the law at least, the surgical ritual becomes key. Public perception appears to support that, here, too, although there is a substantial weight of feeling that you are what you're born as, physically.
Of course, this was all a lot easier when all believed the whole XX and XY chromosome distinction. Now, this distinction appears to to be less clear and not as straightforward as some believed. Well, I'll leave it up to Aviva to sort the whole thing out when she's older. She seems to have had an excellent start. :) Patrick Samphire |
| Well, that's a good point. I think I have pointed out on occasion that it is, in fact, possible to change genders, and that the notion that women have spaeltlis and men have schnaebbis is more a general rule than an absolute one. But that she will grow up into a woman, if nothing is undertaken to the contrary, is what seems to have gotten her attention.
The issue of changing one's gender is interesting, though. On some level I think it's fundamentally a matter of declaration, and the surgical and medicinal rituals we undergo in the West to solemnize it make no more and no less sense than the less invasive rituals I'm told the Polyneisans traditionally used (or the more invasive ones used in India to create a "third gender"). On another level, it seems to me that perhaps the rituals create new genders rather than transferring people from one (immutable) gender to the (singular) other. Western-style transexualism is treated in the Rosenbaum household with the same skepticism and fear as all other elective, non-reversible surgeries, although I am sure there are cases where it is the best option. |
| Your daughter is remarkably creative, Ben. However, I'm worried by the idea that she seems to have gotten that boys can't grow up to be women and girls can't grow up to be men. Is transexualism so frowned upon in the Rosenbaum household? ;) Patrick Samphire |
| Oh, I do agree, sexism is not dead, and FTBYAM will surely come in handy when she's older... although I do think that, in many ways, it's not radical *enough*.
I also would never claim that Aviva isn't picking up those subtle, under-the-conscious-radar clues about gender identities, roles, and restrictions. I mean, I'm always telling Aviva she's beautiful, without even thinking about it, just because she is -- but will I tell Noah he's beautiful quite as much? Aviva is extremely proud of the elaborate hairdos she comes home from daycare with. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I doubt anyone will take so much trouble with Noah's hair. Will I react less quickly or harshly when Noah throws a punch or a tackle at another kid than I do when Aviva does, just because my official disapproval of violence will be tempered by memories of enjoying roughhousing, or because it will be less socially embarassing for me in front of other parents for a boy to be violent than a girl? So I'm very aware that Aviva is immersed in a sea of sexism of these subtle kinds -- and indeed, I think that's what I was vaguely hoping FTBYAM would somehow address. So it was a shock that it was addressing much more blatant and appalling kinds of sexism that are really not in Aviva's frame of reference yet. How do I know it's not in her frame of reference? I can't be sure, but I have good reasons for suspecting it. Aviva's very interested in who is and isn't allowed to do things -- in particular, what adults are allowed to do and what children, at different ages, are allowed to do; she's always forbidding her dolls to do things and consoling them that they'll be allowed to do them when they're older (often when they're seven, which is for Aviva the age of universal license and entitlement and freedom -- she is planning not to be scared of lions any more when she's seven, for instance). She's also very interested in the differences between boys and girls, but she seems to regard those differences as exclusively anatomical. At the pediatrician's office, for instance, she introduced Noah to the doctor by saying "this is my brother. He's a boy, because he has a penis. Boys have penises and girls have vaginas." (she seemed to want to make sure the doctor was aware of this; the doctor nodded sagely). However, she has never once implied that boys are allowed to do anything that girls are not, or visa versa (except that boys are not allowed to grow up to become women, or girls men -- sometimes her dolls protest these restrictions, but Aviva is firm). Actually, one of her boy dolls, Andrew, has a child of his own (the small giraffe -- apparently by parthenogenesis, since Aviva insists that Andrew is the giraffe's only parent, its "mommydaddy"), and I believe Andrew even nurses the giraffe on occassion. I always told Aviva that the only thing women can do that men can't is bear children, and the only thing men can do that women can't is pee standing up (which is not strictly true, but I don't want her trying -- it could be messy). She seems to have taken my pronouncements with a grain of salt, though, because although she gave birth to most of her children-dolls, one of them -- Cereina, arguably her favorite -- was birthed by the father (the Happy Boy). |
| Yay, Benjamin! (I know, I'm tardy. But the congrats are heartfelt and well-deserved anyway!)
Wow. Free to Be You and Me. I hadn't thought of that record in *years*. I got it when my son was a toddler and eventually we both were sick of it. I thought it was just great in 1972...I can see your points, though, Jed, about how it may be misunderstood by someone with out a context of discrimination...someday it'll be a collector's item, maybe? Terry |
| I loved "Free to Be..." as a kid, too, and my family went all out--we had the record AND the book, and I remember watching the movie, too. Of course, by the time I read it, I HAD been exposed to those attitudes at school (and usually from other kids, repeating what their parents had told them)...and having worked at an upper middle-class American daycare a couple of years ago, I can say pretty confidently that lots of kids nowadays, too, have sadly picked up those attitudes even by three years old. Mega-kudos to you and Esther for helping Aviva avoid them so far! :)
I read an interesting discussion of the whole thing in Naomi Wolf's book _(Mis)Conceptions_. She talks about the difference in how adults react to little kids depending on their gender, without even thinking about it (and in even more subtle ways than the "girls can't play with trucks" order). One study done in a daycare found that the huge majority of little girls were greeted by adults who complimented them on something about how they looked (ie, "Good morning, Rachel, those are pretty shoes you're wearing"), whereas little boys were greeted with a comment on what they were doing (ie, "Good morning, Michael, what a cool robot you've made/picture you've drawn"), regardless of what activities the girls or boys were taking part in at the time. Since I was working in a daycare when I read it, I felt a real chill--I went to work the next day and realized that it was true! So of course, no matter what you're doing at home, they're going to have it made pretty clear to them what other people expect of them in the outside world.... but, geez, it sure does help if they're NOT having those messages reinforced by their parents! A long and rambling response, but it's a subject I've been thinking a lot about lately! Steph Burgis |
| I picked up Free to Be on CD not long ago, but I can no longer remember where. Aha -- you can get it at Amazon.
The thing that's struck me about it over the years is that it didn't leave me very well-prepared for the real world. I grew up listening to it, and the conclusion I came to was that the problem of sexism had pretty much been solved; at some subconscious level I thought it was a document of the way the world worked, rather than a wish-fulfillment dream for the future. And so I was surprised over and over, for years, to learn that discrimination against women still happened. I'm glad to have had that kind of idealistic upbringing, but it does sometimes mean reality doesn't live up to my expectations. So I guess I'm inclined to say that your newfound reaction to it wrt Aviva has more to do with her being three (and being raised by cool/enlightened parents) than with the album being outdated, or with it being 2004. There are lots of people out there (and I imagine that Aviva will encounter many of them over the next few years if she attends a public school) who will still laugh at a boy for playing with a doll and a girl for playing with a truck, who will beat up boys who cry, who think that mothers should do the housework. In fact, I suspect that a lot of kids have already learned those lessons thoroughly by age three; I'm pleased to hear that Aviva hasn't. Which is to say, despite a few old-fashioned lapses, I think the message of the album is still well ahead of its time. So, yeah, by all means hold off on playing it for Aviva again -- but do keep it around, 'cause I suspect it'll come in handy the first time some clueless teacher or kid or friend's parent says, "Now, dear, you shouldn't be playing with that truck, that's for boys." Btw, you can also get the DVD at Amazon; I never saw the animations and such that went with the songs when I was a kid, but friends of mine did, and are still fond of them. You may also be able to get the book, which contains lyrics and photos and a bunch of pieces that aren't on the album, and maybe even sheet music (I forget). The sequel, Free to Be a Family, never quite clicked for me, perhaps because I was too old for it by the time I encountered it, or perhaps because the subject matter was less relevant to me personally. |
| So I've been looking for a copy "Free To Be You And Me" for a long time now. That's the magnificent Ms. Magazine, Marlo Thomas & co. feminist kid's album of the 1970s. It was one of my favorite albums growing up, and I wanted to play it for Aviva.
My mom finally unearthed the LP and taped it for us, and I started listening to it this weekend with Aviva on her cassette player. But here's the weird thing: for Aviva -- she's only three, remember, and it's 2004 -- this tape doesn't function as an introduction to feminism. It functions as an introduction to sexism. Aviva has no idea that anyone would laugh at a boy for playing with a doll, or why a king would think it a good idea to force his daughter to marry the fastest runner in the kingdom, or why girls wouldn't play with trucks, or that anyone would think it was a BAD idea to cry, or that parents wouldn't split up housework. So it's kind of a horrific alternate universe that Free To Be Me seems to be describing. Indeed, decades later, Free To Be You And Me's feminism is timid in parts. Grandma comes and reassures William's consternated family (particularly the horrified father -- FTBYAM is full of particularly unenlightened fathers) that "William wants a doll / so when he has a baby someday / he'll know how to dress it / and diaper it double / and gently caress it / to bring up a bubble / and care for his baby as every good father / should learn to do..." Except he doesn't. William doesn't say, "I'd give my bat and ball and glove / to have a doll that I could practice parenting techniques on". The idea of doll as pedagogical instrument may mollify William's Fred-Flinstone dad, but William wants a doll to LOVE. That's what dolls are for. I think I may put this tape away until Aviva is older. When she has some experience of sexism out there in the world, its message may be interesting to her. At the moment, though -- do I want her spending time in the world FTBYAM describes? Do I want her exposed to people -- even bad guy characters -- who have a PROBLEM with Aviva being Free To Be Her? |
| I *love* Paul. He was one of our instructors at Clarion. I definitely will check it out, Ben. |
| I'm reading the collection "If Lions Could Speak" by Paul Park, and I love it. Mostly stuff from Interzone. Like Ted Chiang meets Calvino, with more emotional turmoil. Joe Bob says check it out.
|
| Hah. Listen to the man talk. Stand next to *him* and you get sunburned.
law Lori |
| You know, one of the many things I find cool about going to conventions and hanging out with writers is that I meet all these folks, like Benjamin, and then they do great things later. I feel reflected glory like a sunny day in Cancun.
It's great to think about somebody you know jumping for joy (or whatever they do to express happiness--Benjamin I imagine smiling secretly to himself, and then redoubling his creative output). Jim Van Pelt |
| Hey, congratulations Jim!!! See what a well-posed question will get you? Boss karma points....
Actually, it turns out it wasn't Ellen who picked it at all, but Gavin and Kelly, which makes a LOT more sense (Ellen agrees that it's not horror)... |
| I don't know, Ling, seems like you're catching up pretty fast lately, Asimov's girl... ;-) |
| Wow Ben! You can't wait for the rest of us to catch up can you?! :) Congrats, that's exciting! Ling |
| Nice! job on Argosy/Best of! |
| That's pretty much the way I figured it would be. I can't tell with my stuff (although some times I'm pretty sure I've hit the ball out of the park).
As irony would have it, I posted my question from school today, and when I got home, there was a contract from Gardner Dozois for my Asimov's story from last year, "The Long Way Home." He's reprinting it in The Year's Best Science Fiction, 21st edition. Jim Van Pelt |
|
I think it's a fine story, up there with my favorites, but not my favorite. Though what my favorite is changes on any given day. It's always surprising when anybody picks anything of mine -- and I don't mean that in any self-effacing way -- it's just that I've given up predicting what editor will like what. Pretty much the same time Ellen picked that story for YBF&H;, she rejected another story I thought was perfect for SciFiction. So what the hell do I know? I do think awards, reviews, etc., do corrupt my attitudes about my stories a little. I'm think I like "Droplet" more after all the good press it got, and there are a couple of stories I haven't been able to sell that I think are damn good, better than other things that I have sold -- but the fact of not selling dampens my enthusiasm a little. "The Orange", which was bought by (slick) Harper's, had been rejected from (semipro) Indigenous Fiction. That put paid to any remaining notion I had that publication or rejection established any truths about the quality of the story. People just like stuff, or they don't. But I do love it when people like stuff. ;-) |
| Great news, Ben!
Do you feel that the story is heads and shoulders above your best work, or did the selection surprise you in some way? Somebody asked me this about one of my stories from last year, and I thought it was a great puzzler of a question, so I'll ask you: Does writing a story that is recognized this way feel any different from writing your other stories? Did you know it was that good when you finished? |
| That's awesome Ben. Simon Owens |
| Congratulations, Ben! Nice work. Patrick Samphire |
| Hey, my Argosy story, "The Valley of Giants", is going to be reprinted in the Year's Best Fantasy & Horror #17! |
| Haskell does look pretty interesting, Ben. But--um--your link has an extra w. Try this. Lori |
| Now, now, Patrick. It's not about whose is longer.
(Actually, now I'm really amused by the idea of writing a script that lets you type in your name, froogles you, adds up the prices, and tells you how much you're worth... heh heh heh (evil evil leer)) It's a shame the Other Cities collection doesn't show up when you froogle me... Small Beer doesn't seem to have a froogle data feed, imagine that... :-> All is well with the bambini, thanks for asking, Charlie. My in-laws are staying in our house this month, which is very nice, a crowded extended-family compound kind of feeling, though it sometimes leads to sensory overload (the inlaws themselves are much quieter than Rosenbaums -- about 0.4 and 0.1 Rosenbaums in volume, respectively -- but Aviva is much more excited with them around). At work, I cannot reach any of the people who are supposed to give me things to do, so I have been researching programming tools, both useful and cool things like XSLT and Ant, and mind-blowingly cool but utterly useless languages like Haskell. By the way, you know what I would do If I Ran The W3C (which is a bit like If I Ran The Circus, only not)? I would define a URI protocol (which is one of those things like "http" or "mailto" that you can put in an HTML link) called "google", so that if I wrote < a href="google:haskell" > Haskell </a> and you clicked on the word "Haskell", it would take you to whatever page was the equivalent of typing "haskell" into Google and pressing "I Feel Lucky". Actually, if I were Kent, I would implement this for the Mill. :-> I think I'll tell him. |
| Awesome!
I just froogled myself. Sadly, mine was much shorter than yours. Patrick Samphire |
| Ben, I would never froogle you without your permission.
I did immediately go off and froogle myself, however. Wow -- nice cheap thrill! Also, I just caught up with your comments on the personhood of newborns. That's a very keen observation. I had the same sense with my second child too. It was obvious within minutes that his personality was quite different than his older brother, an impression that only grew stronger before we ever left the hospital. To this day, his personality still surprises me by how much he is like that first impression. I hope that all is well at home with the family. Charlie Finlay |
| Cool! You is Somebody!
law Lori |
| Wow, now that's wacky -- you can froogle me. |
| Thanks, Ben! |
| Thanks, everyone!
(e Gruess vo dr Aviva, Ruth) |
| Ben, thanks for the lovely wrapup of the last few months. Sounds like things are going wonderfully for you. Big congratulations on Noah. This thought in particular struck me:
"Oddly, given that they can't do anything much and their brains are still full of sprawling, undifferentiated neurons about to be massively winnowed, a newborn baby does not seem like a blob or a blank slate. Rather, looking into Noah's eyes, I had a very powerful sense of personhood." This is so close to what I felt after Britta was born. (With Alex, I don't think I had enough brain cells left to notice anything.) Happy new year, and may things continue to go well for you. Say hi to Aviva for me from "der anderi Ruth." :-) |
| Good news, cute kid, great thing for the new year! Thomas R |
| Ben, beautiful chronicle of the event in your journal. It's so wonderful to open yourself to your children and learn from them.
You are a lucky dude, but you deserve it. law Lori |
| Yay, Ben, on the newest acquisition! What a cutie, and Aviva plays the proud big sister role to perfection. Marsha |
| Congratulations, Ben! Jamie Rosen |
| Congratulations, Benjamin. Fredrick Obermeyer |
| Noah Jonathan Rosenbaum has arrived!
More details here |
| Thanks Thomas! And Terry! |
| Thanks. I read about their success in the Economist and was curious to learn more. And of course thanks for the work you've done so far. I think you're among the best new writers. Thomas R |
| Ben, I got "Other Cities"...I've only read a few stories...I'm savoring them...mmmMMMMMmmmm...! Terry |
| Thanks Thomas -- glad you liked E-t-N.
I did indeed live in Switzerland, but consumed as we've been by moving, I have not paid any attention to the fortunes of the SVP. How did they do? I guess I should go Google it... I hope they didn't finally succeed in revising Switzerland's bizarrely homeostatic power-sharing deal, the Magic Formula. The right wing of the SVP definitely appeals to the most xenophobic sentiments of the Swiss, but I think all things considered they are a relatively far-right benign party, compared to other European far-right parties. They are principally concerned with keeping Switzerland out of all foreign entanglements, slowing down or stopping immigration, not joining the UN or the EU, making sure everyone in the country speaks Swiss-German, and not sharing their chocolate with anyone. "Miis Schoggi! Miis Schoggi! Ich muss gar nid teile!! Nei nei nei nei nei!" [my chocolate, my chocolate, i must not share at all, no no no no no] |
| Hey Ben! Neat story by you in Asimov's. Kind of odd how you do these stories that if described to me I would probably skip, but turn out to be pretty intriguing. Err that's a rather backhanded compliment, sorry. I also always love to see someone try an all-alien story. Ever since I was a kid watching the Dark Crystal those kind of humanless worlds have gotten me. Especially as I imagine it's very hard to make them both alien and yet pleasing to the reader.
In part though I came here because I'm curious about something. You lived in Switzerland until recently correct? Do you have any thoughts on the recent success of the SVP or Swiss People's Party? Are they as xenophobic as feared or just Right wing by European standards? Thomas R |
| Or is it, then, even a category at all? Or a description of an act? (Oh, my, and I just went to a Lenny Bruce place, right then.)
Of course, once an author's work becomes a category unto itself, then it's not a category-buster any more.... *g* Elizabeth Bear |
| It ain't my definition, actually, it's Theodora Goss's. At least, she's the one I heard it from. It may be my observation that the category is thus a moving target -- but that's probably not original with me, either.
Thanks, Frank, I never got an acceptance on the Rumor Mill before... :-) Meta-interstitial... hmmm... seems more like semi-interstitial... or intermetastitial... tomaeto, tomahto, potaeto, potahto... |
| Ben, I really like your definition of 'interstitial' as an evolving thing--and one that's therefor eternally existing and eternally growing.
Category busting. It's a good thing. *g* Actually, it is a good thing-- a road to freshness, if nothing else. I mean, who wants to read another Arthurian romance? But then you get something like MAGE, and suddenly Arthuriana regains its interest. Hmmm. I think you're definitely on to something there. Elizabeth Bear |
| Was I sent here by the Devil?
No, good sir, I'm on the level. FrankWu |
| Backing away slowly from Frank's post, which carries the magic number. TKF |
| Ben, sorry to being so pokey getting around to emailing you back about your story "Start the Clock." I really, really like it. Very cool idea, and fun use of language. Bravo. Proud to have it as part of the Exquisite Corpuscle collection and I really hope (and expect) to see you sell it somewhere else before we get around to publishing it. I also asked Jay what he thought about it and he really liked it too though he told me he kept getting interrupted in the middle of reading it.
Also, I talked to Deb this weekend about contracts and, yes, we should be able to get these done and out fairly soon (whatever that means). Frank FrankWu |
| So you're saying you want stuff that falls in the cracks between the meta-genres of Genre Fiction and Interstitial Fiction? I think we should call that Meta-Interstitial. |
| ..."to interstitiate"?
I just finished a story, "Start the Clock", 6000 words. It's part of the Exquisite Corpuscle anthology (actually I'm hoping they'll retitle it before Wheatland releases it in fall 2004) Jake Lake and Frank Wu organized, which is a big game of telephone. My story's written in response to Diana Sherman's play, and Mary Anne Mohanraj will write a poem in response to my story. Fun, yes? Since Wheatland isn't asking for first rights, I'm sending it off to Ellen Datlow today (she said she could publish it in time not to conflict with it being in the anthology)... I don't think it's particularly interstitial, though at least one listener when I read it at CapClave seemed to think it was. But that's another issue I have with this interstitial business -- it makes interstitial/noninterstitial seem binary, as if your only choices were a highly formalized, rote, dead, formulaic, codified genre or the utterly freewheeling and strange work flying in between. While I think the *truly* interstitial stuff is the most original and challenging and causes genres and literature to grow the most, I think the stuff that's most fun to *read*, most enjoyable, is about at the halfway mark of interstitiality: on the "surface" of the genre tree if you will; partaking principally of one literary tradition, and using others sparingly, like salt. That (unlike with some of my screamingly interstitial stuff) is where "Start the Clock" is situated. |
| Sounds like as a concept, interstitial is more of a verb than a noun. David Moles |
| Hi Ben,
I'm Terry Hickman. I was here before all the other Johnny-come-lately Terrys, so I get to sign in without a surname initial. It's a privilege I treasure, to be sure. Terry |
| Thanks Terry -- hope you like it. (Which Terry are you? :-> )
So here's my schedule for CapClave, which is in Silver Spring near DC this weekend (I'll crosspost this to meet me at the con and so forth): Friday 9:00 PM - 10:00 PM Prep-Time for Science Fiction/Fantasy Saturday 5:30 PM - 6:30 PM Jewish SF Sunday 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM Reading Anyone coming? |
| AY BENJIIII!!!!!
I just got the notice that you're book's available and I just ordered my copy!!! I can't wait to read it! Way to go!! Terry |
| Or, perhaps, it's equivalent to saying "read the classics when they first come out", because if what you say is true, the interstitial of the day is the in-genre of the future. Jane Eyre isn't interstitial anymore, because it's been placed firmly in that ill-defined genre of mainstream. Same as Tolkien, Heinlein and Chandler have slipped off interstitiality into their genres. Patrick Samphire |
| Theodora wants to use "slipstream" as a synonym for "interstitial". I'm not crazy about that usage. I think she and the Interstitial Arts folks are onto something when they say that the most alive parts of art are the bits between the solidified genres. That's a useful insight. The problem, I think, is when you want to use that as a category, and say, look, here's interstitial art. Genres grow by encompassing their previously interstitial peripheries, so that most classic works in any given genre were once interstitial works outside of it. Raymond Chandler interstitially brought the knight-errant to the world of two-fisted crime fiction; Heinlein, in a letter I recently read that he wrote to Campbell, credits himself with (interstitially) introducing high tragedy to pulp SF. Tolkein interstitially integrated inventive linguistics and deep study of the Eddas with fairy tales and heroic fantasy a la Conan. So you can't really use "interstitial" in a sentence like "X is interstitial (as opposed to being some other category)". You can talk about an interstitial mode of working or the technique of looking for the interstitial space, maybe. But at any given time, most of the best people working in any given genre are also working outside it, bringing things into it. So you can't talk about "the interstitial folks" as opposed to "the in-genre folks". That's an illusion.
My favorite interstitial work today is Jane Eyre, which is: a romance a gothic a horror story a mystery a novel of voice and character a novel of class and social conflict a religious allegory a supernatural fantasy a comedy of manners Saying "read interstitial literature" is roughly equal to saying "read the classics". |
| Ain't she?
|
| I never would have thought of "Tithe" as slipstream either. It's a great book, but very much dark/urban fantasy. Sarah Canary sounds like the closest one to me, but I haven't read either of your choices.
It was good to see you, and Aviva really is the cutest ever. Jae |
| Wow--I own _Tithe_, and I really enjoyed it, but I would never have labelled it as slipstream--it just read as straight urban fantasy, in the tradition of Emma Bull/Charles DeLint/etc. (Or is that slipstream too, now?) Just shows how subjective these labels can be....
I'll be looking for all of those books now! :) Steph Burgis |
| Hi Lingster!
So during the WFC slipstream panel I asked each of the panelists to name 2 works of slipstream (by whatever definition) that they loved. They all sounded great. Here they are: Chris Barzak chose: The Truth About Celia - Kevin Brockmeyer Sexing the Cherry (or The Passion) - Jeanette Winterson Gregory Frost chose: Stranger Things Happen - Kelly Link Tithe - Holly Black Kathleen Goonan chose: Hopscotch - Julio Cortazar Sarah Canary - Karen Joy Fowler I chose: The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon The Wrestler's Cruel Study - Stephen Dobyns Theodora Goss chose: Burning Your Boats - Angela Carter City of Saints and Madmen - Jeff Vandermeer |
| re: 28 Days Later
There's a totally different ending in which there was a major plot hole and it was never filmed, but there is a storyboard of it and it's read like an audio book. I saw it on DVD. It's a cute movie and the lead was much cuter once he shaved and all that. ;) Ling |
| So I think there were four major definitions of slipstream offered in the panel I moderated at World Fantasy Con:
-- the "literature of the strange and mind-boggling", as much of Bruce Sterling's original list represented -- non-genre writing that would appeal to sf/f readers (which includes both writing with a genre feel or tropes from outside the genre community, and writing within the genre community without many genre elements). -- interstitial literature, that is, stuff in no established and codified genre, but rather in the space in between the branches of the genre tree These definitions are essentially contradictory. We decided to revel in the confusion. |
| Oh, I liked the punters bit in 28 days later, Terry, but then I'm an incorrigible romantic.
I understand that there's *another*, alternate ending -- a third ending, in other words -- after the credits. |
| Evidently (according to the results of a RM Search I just did), someone mentioned that movie "28 days later" (or whatever the exact title is) on your topic, Ben, and since we rented & watched it yesterday, I wanted to come in & say, it was really cool. Not your usual slasher film at *all*. Made me jump in several places, too. I had forgotten about the alternative ending--not sure what that means. There was a sort of chopped off place that *could* have been meant to be the end, but then after the screen had gone black it came back with what certainly looked like it could've been tacked on, or it may be the ending they did to make audiences happier, I don't know. Anyhow. Overall nicely done, I thought. Occasionally they overdid the speeded-upedness bit. But that was about my only complaint. Oh and it weirded me out a little bit when the two protags finally decided "it's not all f***ed," their being all bloody etc. and kissing like punters. Bleagh. |
| Hmmm, maybe that difference between "hard" and "soft" slipstream could be analagous to the difference between Crank! and Century, respectively?
Looking forward to running into you at WFC, Ben. And everyone else bumping around here. Alan DeNiro |
| Hee -- yes, well-put about Sterling and modernism. (Though I think he was conflating several different definitions in that article.) ...Though actually, he may well have been familiar with it, and just trying to put things in terms a genre reader would understand; at the time, he was writing stuff (forgive me if I keep bringing this up) that was squarely in the lit-fic tradition, but that sf readers were hailing as brilliantly original and way better than anything those dumb mainstream people could come up with.
I'm going to self-servingly point to two other items: 1. Jim Kelly's upcoming On the Net column from Asimov's, on the subject of slipstream, which points to: 2. my editorial "Where Does Genre Come From?" (partly based on stuff I posted to the Rumor Mill during the last big outbreak of The Slipstream Discussion here; you could search on "slipstream" and on "Slipstream" in the RM's search system for more). Also, Rich Horton had some comments in his year's-end review of Strange Horizons last year about "soft slipstream" and "hard slipstream" -- the former, he said, iIrc, represented by SH and Ideo, the latter by Fantastic Metropolis. Oh, and don't forget to mention the slipstream conference for any academic types in the room. |
| Aha! Okay, that's cutting it pretty close, as I have a friend's wedding to be at at 6pm, but I think I can manage.
Why is everything fun on Saturday? Like the Small Press Party. Waah! I'm very pleased that you'll be there Susan -- didn't see any of you stylus monks on the membership list.... |
| Ben-- addition to the schedule! You will also be at the Strange Horizons tea party, which will be Saturday from 4 to 5:30 in the convention hospitality suite. Susan |
| Ben, I don't know why, but I've never been able to get through to that page. I've only ever tried at work.... Maybe The Well is too subversive and it's blocked. :-)
law Lori |
| Let's try that link again.
There are some people on Sterling's list who are pretty much squarely in the genre community (Jack Womack), or who are outside but are doing very classical SF rather than anything in the literary modernist/postmodernist tradition (Handmaid's Tale) or which are plotwise tales of the standardly fantastic whose power lies in voice and character and unexpected freshness (Beloved), but by and large I think what he was mostly going after was stories that mess with the reader's experience in ways reminiscent of the modernist and postmodernist traditions. |
|
Okay, at the World Fantasy Convention (in D.C. Halloween weekend) I'll be up to the following: I'll be reading (what should I read?) Thursday from 9:30 - 10:00 pm in the "Congressional C/D" room. I'll be moderating a panel on "Slipstream," Saturday from 2:00 - 3:00 pm, in the Regency Foyer. Thoughts on slipstream, anyone? Here's a thought on Bruce Sterling's essay in which he originally coined the term "slipstream": he's using it to mean almost the exact opposite of what it's come to mean as a marketing category. Sterling meant "really weird and fantastic stuff from outside the SF/F community"; today many people use slipstream to mean "not-all-that-weird-or-fantastic stuff from inside the SF/F community" -- borderline "realism". Also, I actually don't think Sterling was identifying a new movement at all -- I think he just wasn't very familiar with modernism. I think the books on his list, while individually quite innovative, were not creating a new genre -- they were working within a well-established set of genres, the surreal, the absurd, the experimental, the gonzo, the magical-realist, the postmodernist/metafictional, whose periods of origination were either within the 1920s, or the 1950s and 60s. So by that reading "slipstream" is a name for "people in the genre noticing older nonrealist traditions" -- the natural conclusion of which is that they start incorporating some of these nonrealist elements into sf/f. |
| Hmm.. I believe that. Yeah, it was kind of funky, I make a server-side socket connection to strange horizons, slurp in the content, and munge it to change the links to do target=_top.
Karin, yes'm, very excited. What BHers are coming? I guess I'll ask on-list. Monday is the day to decide on my job here. Yowza! I actually ended up bailing on the part-time job. I did a spreadsheet and came to the conclusion that with two little ones and Esther not working, the money just wasn't going to be enough. There are lots of odd hidden costs when you're the sole breadwinner, like life and disability insurance and so on... they add up. So I'm settling, I think, for something with pretty regular eight-hour days. That may actually be even more conducive to writing -- if I can be disciplined about an hour-or-two-every-morning system -- than four-day weeks where the working days are totally jammed with work. |